Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Welcome to Un-Intelligent Design – a new blog not concerned at all with Intelligent Design, as you might have thought, but rather with games analysis. I suppose I should introduce myself shortly before I realize that I need to copy and paste this entire aside to an About page, so let’s give this a shot.

My name is Brian “The Real” Seiler (like the guy from Heroes, except 1. I had it first; 2. I spelled it right; and 3. I only eat brains to blend in with the rest of the zombies) and I do video games. By which I mean I do them a lot. More than I used to, truth be told, ever since I plugged into the journalistic coverage of the industry. I ought to admit that I’m also kind of a dick when it comes to games, by which I mean that I can find something wrong with anything, and I will be quite happy to point out those problems. For the past twenty years, I’ve been pointing out these great wrongs to my friends, coworkers, and random strangers on the street (none of whom seem to be particularly receptive to what I consider to be the inherent design flaws in the latest Burnout title), and now I’ve decided to bring that wonderful insight to you, my loving public.

Seriously? I want to do this for a living. This blog is a shameless attempt to get my material out there for other people to read, process, and maybe decide they want to pay me to do it. The stuff I put here will contain some reviews, but mostly it’s my intention to critically examine general design habits, processes, and decisions, trends in the industry, and major discussions and maybe take some of the air out of these positions. Among other features, I intend to include the following:

1. The official Un-Intelligent Design column, selecting one topic from the general area of the industry and essentially raping it with a stick. Think Zero Punctuation, but not as funny, not about a specific game (unless it’s REALLY huge), and a lot more appealing than the phrases “rape with a stick” and “not as funny” make it sound.

2. A regular review of This Week in Not Really Video Game Music, focusing on new downloadable content for Rock Band, and, if they deign to grace us with it, Guitar Hero 3 material. The focus here is going to be on honest review and recommendation, hopefully with a little bit more thought and depth than what they’re doing at OXM.

3. A podcast. Eventually. I might have to host it somewhere else, because I don’t really have a lot of space to work with here, but I want to do about an hour a week where I talk about items in the news, cover any reader mail (assuming there are readers), and do my ranting in audio form instead of relying solely on the written word. Stay tuned. Producers, volunteers, and suggestions in this particular effort will be greatly appreciated.

4. Some reviews, but not as many as you might think. For one thing, reviews can get pretty damn boring. For another, I’m still theoretically writing reviews on occasion for JustPressPlay.net.

So, welcome aboard, readers – brace yourselves for negativity, but hopefully constructive dissension. I aim to please, and if you have any suggestions, feel free to drop me an email once I get that set up. Publishers, feel free to contact me and ask me to write for money. For that matter, anybody can feel free to send me money. I promise I won’t judge you for financing me. Oh, and tell The Escapist that you would TOTALLY LOVE to read this over on their site, since I’ve pitched part of this idea to them, kind of expecting them to reject it, but we’ll see. And if there’s anything you want to hear about, or any subject you think I should cover, I’m definitely open to suggestions.